[When John and Charlie arrived at Station 13, the LM bearing/range was 184/3.8. With the LM near CB.1/80.6, these readings give a Station 13 location near CW.1/81.9. As is discussed in the commentary following 168:18:45, their
actual position is about CV.2/80.6. The position difference of 180 meters is about the same size and direction as the error noted at Station 11 at 166:45:15. The relevant map is "Descartes EVA-III 3 of 3".]

[With regard to the difference between the indicated nav system position here at Station 13 and the actual location, note that, when John and Charlie get back to the LM at 169:16:11, the nav system will show them close to their actual location. If the difference was due to wheel slippage during the climb to the rim of North Ray, similar wheel slippage on the way back during the climbs up to the rim of Palmetto or up the east-west ridge north of the LM could reduces the difference.]

168:46:36 Young: And we're going to follow our tracks. Say where Station 10 (Prime) is again?

168:46:41 England: Okay. Station 10 makes a triangle...

168:46:43 Duke: Right behind (meaning west of) the LM.

168:46:44 Young: Okay.

168:46:43 England: ...with ALSEP and the old Station 10. We'll call it Station 10 prime, and it's about 50 meters to the northwest of the old 10.

[As shown in EVA-2 CDR-18, Station 10 was about halfway between the LM and the ALSEP site.]

168:47:20 Duke: (To John) There you go. (To Tony) Okay. I'll take the same set of (Hasselblad) pictures coming back, Tony...

168:47:26 Young: Charlie, get your arm, you got...

168:47:27 Duke: Oh, excuse me. Excuse me.

168:47:30 Young: Yeah.

[Charlie may have been reaching up to turn the DAC on and hit John driving arm.]

168:47:31 Duke: (The same set of pictures that) we took going out to get you a different Sun angle. This taking pictures from the Rover here is really good. The (RCU-mounted) camera is just in the right position, Tony; so, hopefully, they will come out. Okay, off to the right - we're at 3.7, 186 - off to our right (which is now west), we have some more of the rounded rocks, whitish in character.

[Frames
18732,
18734, and
18736
are high-resolution examples. The later shows a small crater to the left of the TV camera which appears to be filled with regolith breccia ('instant rock').

168:48:04 Young: Yeah. You know, so far on this trip, my personal estimation of Charlie's slope estimates that you can take them and double them. Every one of them.

168:48:14 Duke: (Laughing) That was always my problem.

168:48:20 Young: Oh, good. (Pause)

168:48:25 Duke: My 10 percents never added up to a hundred, John.

168:48:28 Young: Yeah, but you're not exaggerating here, I'll tell you that. You're sure (chuckling)...you're sure under-exaggerating. Houston, this is the roughest terrain to be "plains" I ever saw.

168:48:40 England: Gee ...

168:48:41 Young: (Lost under Tony)...

168:48:41 England: ...we've heard that before on almost every geology trip.

168:48:44 Young: ...that looked like this.

168:48:48 England: I don't think the photo-geologists get close enough to their subjects.

168:48:56 Duke: Okay, Tony; looking back now at 2 o'clock - and we're heading 140 (at a bearing and range of) 188, 3.6 - you can see End Crater right on the flank of Palmetto, and you can see the rim of Dot.

[On the "Descartes EVA-III 2 of 3" map, End Crater
is on the eastern flank of Palmetto at CL.5/82.4 and Dot Crater - which is named for Charlie's wife Dotty - is on the northeast rim at about CN.3/81.3. End gets its name from the fact that it was to have been the site of Station 17, the last planned stop of the traverse. Charlie's photo, AS16-117-
18748 shows the rise up to the rim of Palmetto Crater at the right, while Dot Crater may be two fiducials to the right of center and 0.5 fiducials up.]

168:49:15 Duke: Palmetto is one of the highest features around, and its rim is really raised. I can see some large blocks on the north side of it that I couldn't see before. And I would estimate (they are) 2 meters or so in size. (Pause)

[These boulders are probably about 1.5 km south of the crew's present location.]

168:49:51 Duke: (Light static) Off to the right toward that - which we described going out - now I can see four or five 2-meter-size boulders, whitish in color, with no fillets around them.

168:50:10 England: Okay.

168:50:12 Duke: I guess we would be off the (North Ray) ejecta blanket here, wouldn't you say, John?

168:50:15 Young: Yeah.

168:50:16 Duke: This probably is right in between the North and South Ray ejecta because there's hardly any pebbles. It's almost a completely smooth surface, maybe 2 percent, Tony, (is covered) with cobbles up to 5 centimeters. An occasional 20-meter...(correcting himself) 20-centimeter block.

[The formal definition of a 'cobble' is a piece of rock between about 6.4 cm and 25.6 cm. Anything bigger than 25.6 cm is a 'boulder' while pieces between about 0.4 cm and 6.4 cm is a 'pebble'. Of course, judging the sizes of pieces of rock from the moving Rover is imprecise at best, and his use of 'cobble' in the sense of 'relatively big but not a boulder' can't be faulted.]

168:50:46 England: As that Sun gets higher, it must be about like looking in zero phase everywhere.

168:50:53 Young: Naw! The visibility gets pretty good at high Sun angles.

168:50:56 England: Good show.

168:50:57 Young: It's still bad going into the Sun...Out of the Sun and into the Sun. But it's pretty good the way we're going right now.

168:51:04 England: Okay.

168:51:05 Young: You want to take a picture into Palmetto, Charlie?

168:51:08 Duke: If we could get in there, I'd like to. Yeah, go up by Dot.

168:51:15 Young: Well, I'll tell you what. We'll go up there, and do a 360 (Rover) pan. How would that be?

168:51:19 Duke: Okay. I'll do use one frame setting. It'll be a little off on exposure, but they'll see what it looks like. (Pause)

168:51:31 Young: (To Tony) (We've) developed a new technique for panning, Houston. (Turning through) 360 degrees on the Rover and (Charlie) clicking away. That ought to make stereo for you. (Pause)

[John and Charlie first tried this technique during the return to the LM at the end of EVA-2. The Apollo 17 crew used the technique to good advantage at several places and Jack Schmitt was able to change camera settings while taking the pans, correcting for the changing sun angle as Gene Cernan drove around in a tight circle.]

[This readout indicates a position near CS.3/83.6, which is about 700 meters NNE of Dot Crater. As indicated previously, their actual position may be about 200 meters south of that location.]

168:51:54 Young: I think this is a South Ray ray.

168:51:55 Duke: You do?

168:51:56 Young: Yeah.

168:51:57 Duke: Yeah, you're probably right.

168:51:59 Young: A big hunk of South Ray. They're the same rocks and everything (that they saw during the EVA-2 traverse). (To Tony) And we're traversing it right now. It's a big rough, big old blanket full of South
Ray material.

[The area with significant coverage by what Charlie think is blocky South Ray ejecta may be shown in AS16-117-18750.]

168:52:10 Duke: Look at those big rocks off to the west there, John, up on the...You probably can't see them, but there are about ten (that) stand out starkly against...

168:52:20 Young: Yep. Yep.

168:52:21 Duke: ...the sky line on the far ridge.

168:52:23 Young: Yeah.

168:52:24 Duke: How far that is...

168:52:25 Young: Yeah, there's one of those black rocks like we got out of South Ray.

168:52:26 Duke: Yeah.

168:52:27 Young: That's a couple-of-meter (sized) black rock. Houston, we've talked about that one when we passed by it the first time. That's the same rock that we saw on the (Palmetto) rim. That's the same class of rock, I would think, that was that big House Rock.

[This 2-meter boulder is probably the one visible on the map at about CK.9/81.9 or about 100 meters southwest of End Crater. It is easily visible in the pan camera frame taken from the Command Module. John and Charlie described the boulder at 166:20:53.]

168:53:47 Duke: Ah, is that...(To Houston) I see the same
characteristics in South Ray rocks as North Ray rocks, being the black and the white. The streaks up the side of the craters are basically the same. But (with) the North Ray you got to guess at it a little bit more; and that might be totally what my guess is. It could be wrong, but I kinda think they're at least a similar rock. (Pause; no response from Houston)

[Jones - "(Chuckling) Did you get a silent response sometimes during training?"]

[Duke - "Yeah."]

168:54:40 Young: Houston, do you read? Over.

168:54:41 England: Oh, we sure do. Sorry, Charlie. We copy that.

168:54:45 Young: Okay. Fine.

168:54:47 Duke: (To Tony; Laughing) That's okay.

168:54:50 England: It was just mind boggling, as Freddo says here.

[Fred Haise, the backup Commander, is sitting with
Tony. NASA photo S72-38433 shows Haise and Deke Slayton sitting with Tony earlier in the missions at 145:38:32.]

168:54:58 Young: Sure is. (Pause) I'll tell you one thing...

168:55:05 Duke: Okay, I think you...I think we could make it up over there, John, if you broke (meaning "turned") right here, but I guess you want to follow the old (outbound) tracks. We were pretty close to the rim there for one time.

168:55:13 Young: Yeah, we'll get there.

168:55:14 Duke: Yeah. (Pause) We know this way works.

168:55:19 Young: Yes, sir. Let's not do any R&D (Research and Development). Unnecessarily, that is.

168:55:28 Duke: But, Tony, if we sample one of these very fresh craters with the indurated regolith that to me look like they're maybe the freshest thing around, can y'all date that just from the regolith? The glassy shards or whatever is in there?

[Very fresh, small craters often have a glass-coating in the bottom - made during the impact if the projectile velocity was high enough - and numerous clumps of compressed soil. The latter is called "indurated regolith" or, more colorfully, "instant rock". Charlie is asking if it would be possible to use samples of the glass and/or instant rock to date impacts that made them.]

168:55:51 England: Say again, Charlie.

168:55:53 Young: (Garbled)

168:55:57 Duke: I was just asking a question about whether you could date a fresh crater with the indurated regolith?

168:56:09 England: Ah, we'll work on an answer on that. I don't know, off-hand.

168:56:15 Duke: Okay. There's a lot of them around the (Palmetto) rim, and I'd like to at least pick up some of that and see what y'all could do with it.

168:56:22 England: That sounds like a good idea. We've...

168:56:24 Young: (Lost under Tony)

168:56:24 England: ...got a definite "maybe" from the Backroom there.

168:56:30 Duke: Okay. And, Tony, we're looking into End Crater, and it's a blocky crater. There are blocks inside of it, and there's some on the rim, half-meter size.

168:56:41 England: Right.

[They have not reached End and will not do so until 168:59:04. Charlie's comment about "looking into End" suggests that, at least for the moment, they are above End.]

168:56:42 England: And you were asking about a stop (to collect a sample from a small, fresh crater)...

168:56:45 England: ...we don't want to stop. We want to go on to (Station) 10-Prime.

168:56:52 Duke: Naw, we weren't talking about a stop. I was just describing End Crater there. It is a blocky-rim crater.

168:56:59 England: Okay, fine.

168:57:00 Duke: As we suspected. (Pause)

[This is probably a reference to a pre-flight discussion. The activities planned for Station 17 at End Crater and shown on checklist pages LMP-40 and LMP-41 include a radial sample. Radial sampling starts with a rock sample at the rim of a crater and then continues with samples taken at successively greater distances as the astronaut walks radially away from
the rim.]

168:57:10 Young: How do you like this (ride), Charlie?

168:57:11 Duke: It's great.

168:57:12 Young: We're doing 14 clicks.

[On flat ground, John's usual speed is about 10 km/hr. A speed of 14 km/hr strongly suggests that, since Charlie said they were "looking into End", they have been dropping down into a depression.]

168:57:13 Duke: This is smooth going. (Pause) Boy, not having that fender really sprays it up there over you, doesn't it?

168:57:23 Young: Yeah. It does.

168:57:24 England: And could we have an amp-hour
reading...(Correcting himself) An amp reading ...

168:57:25 Duke: Tony, occasionally, when we hit a big bump...(Stops to listen) 40. Between 30 and 40.

168:57:33 England: Okay. (Pause)

168:57:40 Duke: When we hit a bump, Tony, and bounce down, that rear wheel that lost the fender showers dirt all over the front of us, and that's what gets the LCRU and the (TV) camera so dirty.

168:59:04 Duke: I know it. (pause) Okay, Tony, we're at End. Just passing End Crater; and the rocks appear to be the same as we sampled, in texture. They may be not as shocked as the ones up on the rim. I could grab you one in about a minute.

168:59:48 England: Incidentally, we were able to track you in the Rover on the way out with the PSE and they are able to see you now on the way back with the active seismic geophones. We'd like to be sure that you are in the same tracks you were going out.

[These readouts give a location of CL.4/82.2. As can be seen in the "Descartes EVA-I, III 1 of 3" map, this location is on the west rim of End Crater. It has been about a minute since Charlie reported they were passing End which, assuming a speed of 9 km/hr, suggests they are about 150 meters south of End, in reasonable agreement with the estimated 180-m error of their Station 13 position. Charlie's next transmission indicates that they are looking into Palmetto.]

169:00:10 Duke: Hey, John. (Turn) right, babe. Look at that! Hook a right, please. Get this old pick-a-chur (sic). (Pause) Okay, Tony. We're gonna to drive over to the rim of Palmetto, which is a pretty good sight.

[Charlie's six pictures are part of the sequence
AS16-117-
18765 to
18771.]

[Frame 18765 shows South Ray Crater in the background. Palmetto Crater fills most of the frame but is largely washed out in this down-Sun photo. Part of the inner slope can be seen to the left of the TV camera.]

[They have driven a straight-line distance of about 2 km since leaving Station 13 and, at the time they started the Rover pan, had been underway for about 15 minutes. The implied straight-line speed is 8 km/hr. although an allowance for weaving around craters might increase the vehicle speed to 9 km/hr.]

169:01:51 Duke: (To John) Look at that view back towards South Ray, isn't that spectacular?

169:02:48 Young: (To Tony) This would have been a good choice for a walking traverse (in the event of a Rover failure). See over there in the west, (pause) over there in the far rim over there? Don't you see something that looks like...Down in that ledge down there.

169:03:07 Duke: Yeah. There are two spots over there that might be outcrop, Tony. There's...

[Jones - "We haven't heard either of you use the word 'bench' in reference to craters very much, if at all. The folks who went to the mare sites certainly saw benches down in craters that corresponded to roughly where the regolith/bedrock boundary was."]

[Duke - "We didn't have any."]

[Jones - "Were all the craters pretty much bowl shaped?"]

[Duke - "Uh-huh. And just loose blocks on the side. There was some benches up on the mountains; and we used that term for that. But we didn't have any in the craters."]

169:04:14 Duke: We thought we'd be able to see the rim (means the LM) from here, Tony, but you can't do it...(Correcting himself) I mean (see) the LM, but you can't do it. (Pause) That thing says 194 for 1.4. I bet you that's right. (Pause) We came farther east (than planned).

169:04:40 Young: Yeah. We're way east.

[The readouts indicate a location near CH.9/82.3. They are actually very near the planned traverse and are seeing higher LM bearings than expected because John landed about 200 meters NNW of the planned landing site.]

[John has seen a rock just ahead that is taller than the Rover's 14-inch (35-cm) clearance. This could be the rock in AS16-117-18786.]

169:04:49 Duke: Uh-oh. Ah! We missed it.

169:04:51 Young: Ahh, good suspension.

169:04:53 Duke: Yeah.

169:04:55 England: Well, we're all holding on to our chairs.

169:04:57 Duke: (To Houston) Between Gator and Palmetto...(Stops to listen) We almost hit a great big rock, but old Percy (Precision), here, avoided it. (To John) Look at that. (A LM bearing of) 194, John, takes us right out our (outbound) tracks. (To Houston) Between Gator and Palmetto, Tony, there's a swale - a depression - that runs east-west that is apparently more cratered and (has) fresher craters there than what we've been driving on between Palmetto and North Ray.

169:05:44 England: Roger.

169:05:46 Young: I just finished my 2 pounds of potassium (meaning the potassium-fortified orange drink in his drink bag).

[The Apollo 15 crew experienced heart-irregularities called PVCs (post-ventricular contractions) which were traced to a potassium deficiency they accumulated during training, primarily during suited, EVA training in the Florida sun. John and Charlie are drinking fortified liquids to prevent a recurrence.]

[Journal Contributor Brian Lawrence notes that John's statement,
"implies that he has been drinking while driving, which
suggests he has a lot of confidence. I would have guessed it would be distracting to find the valve."]

[In large, liquid-fueled rockets like the Saturn V, the
tanks have to be baffled to reduce fuel sloshing and the attendant variable loads on the vehicle. John has been complaining throughout the mission about the orders he and Charlie and Ken have been given to drink lots of liquids.]

[Jones - "Was fuel-slosh an aircraft problem? Spacecraft? Or
both?"]

[Duke - "It could be both. Yeah: big airplanes. They baffle the
tanks, usually; but it is not much of a problem any more with big
airplanes. But, in the spacecraft, in the big rockets without the right baffles, yeah, fuel sloshing could be a big problem. Mainly, fuel slosh is a problem with Navy ships, though. Big ships. They rock like this and pitch and the fuel's going back and forth in the tanks. Liquids on a big ship, if the tanks aren't baffled, they can really be a problem."]

[Jones - "Especially if the tank's resonant frequency is about the same as the wave frequency."]

169:06:10 England: And the Command Module just did their plane change burn, and it's a good burn.

169:06:16 Duke: Good.

169:06:17 Young: (Garbled) (Pause)

[During the 65 hours since John and Charlie landed, the Moon has rotated under the plane of the Command Module's orbit and the displacement is now about 33 degrees in longitude. Mattingly has just performed a Service Engine burn to change the orientation of his orbit so he will pass over the landing site when John and Charlie return to orbit at about 175:30.]

169:06:27 Duke: Ah, the old (garbled) (Pause) Man; we are showered (by dust thrown up by the fenderless rear-wheel).

169:07:07 Young: (To Houston) How many gammas did you say that LSM (Lunar Surface Magnetometer) was, Tony? 300 and some?

169:07:12 England: 313.

169:07:16 Young: How many times higher than that...That's 10 times higher than what the Apollo 12 guys got, isn't it?

169:07:26 England: No, it's not that much greater. It's about 100 more than they got on Apollo 14.

169:07:35 Young: Yeah. That's what I thought. Well, the magnetic field of the Moon, in places, is a lot more than anybody ever believed it would be.

169:07:44 England: That's right. From lunar orbit, it only looks like...From high lunar orbit, it only looks like 2 or 3 gamma, at most.

[Duke - "John handled the magnetometer, so he had an interest in it. You tended to pick an interest, more, in what you were doing, in what you were trained to do."]

169:07:53 Duke: John, that looks like an endogenic crater right over there to me.

["Endogenic" means internally generated. Charlie is saying that he sees no evidence that the crater was formed by impact. An example of an endogenic crater would be a sink. One can imagine, for example, a surface subsidence over a covered lava tube, although such a feature would be highly unlikely at Cayley.]

169:07:56 Young: Which one?

169:07:57 Duke: Off to 2 o'clock. It has no rim to it...

169:08:00 Young: Can't see too good...Yeah. I see what you're saying there.

169:08:02 Duke: See what I'm saying?

169:08:03 Young: A sink-hole type

169:08:04 Duke: Looks like a sink hole; a big doodlebug hole.

[Jones - "What, pray tell, is a 'Doodlebug
Hole'?"]

[Duke - "You've never seen a doodlebug?"]

[Jones - "I've never seen a doodlebug hole. Sorry."]

[Duke - "Well, in the South, when I was a little kid, my
Grandmamma had a house that was up on posts - pillars. And so, as kids, you could crawl underneath. On hands and knees you could crawl under the house; and it was sandy under there. And there was these little bugs - we called 'em Doodlebugs, but I don't know what they were. It wasn't like they dug a hole like this (throwing the dirt out in a pile around the hole), it was like they just drilled down and everything fell into it. So it was a level surface (around the lip of the hole); you'd come up and there was no rim to this hole, it was just sunk in. So, what I'm saying is, this hole that we're describing here was like that: it just came, and it didn't have any rim around the hole - which indicates ejecta. It was like everything just sunk out the bottom. So it looked like doodlebug holes."]

[Jones - "And the doodlebugs burrowed in sand."]

[Duke - "Yeah, they burrowed in sand. And we used to have a
rhyme. I can't remember. You take a little piece straw off a broom and 'Doodlebug, doodlebug, are you at home?' And you'd spin this little piece of straw around in this little doodlebug hole and, if he was there, eventually you'd work him up to the top."]

[Jones - "How big were they?"]

[Duke - "There were little. Not even as big as the tips of your
fingers. And I forgot what else they look like; but they were real small little bugs, almost like a sand flea."]

[Mark Swanson, creator/editor of The Antlion Pit: A Doodlebug Anthology, tells us that "Doodlebug" is a colloquial name for the larvae of pit-digging species within the antlion family (Myrmeleontidae), which are insects related to lacewings. They are found in many parts of the world.]

[See, also, page 19 in Arthur C. Clarke's 1961 novel, "A Fall of Moondust". Mark writes, "I'm curious how Clarke learned of antlions. If he spent his childhood in the UK, it's unlikely he saw one as a child as antlions are extremely rare in the UK (a tiny colony in Suffolk, very far from Somerset). Perhaps he learned about them in Sri Lanka and saw children playing with them. Curious." Clarke was born in 1917 and lived in Sri Lanka from 1956 until his death in 2008.]

169:08:08 Duke: And that's, Tony, at our 2 o'clock, and we're presently at 0.9 at 198.

[The indicated location is near CF.4/82.0, although their actual position may be 150-200 meters farther south. In a moment, Charlie will describe the crater as being at least 200 meters across and 40 meters deep, suggesting that he is describing the feature centered at CE.1/80.4. This is the same feature Charlie described as a 'big sag' on the outbound trip at 166:12:40.]

[Tony is asking if the sink hole is on the top of a dome - which might indicate that the dome was a volcanic construct; but John and Charlie tell him that they are currently driving on a bit of elevated ground.]

169:08:25 England: Okay; understand.

169:08:28 Duke: That crater I'm...Yahoo!!! Boy!

169:08:33 England: And you left the ground again.

169:08:38 Duke: No, we almost...We spun out on my side.

169:08:44 Young: That's it. We're going...(Pause)

169:08:50 Duke: Tony, this crater is about, I'd say, at least 200 meters across, has no rim, and no blocks associated with it, except for rays (meaning that the rocks he can see in the crater are South Ray ejecta).

169:09:07 England: Okay. We copy that.

169:09:11 Duke: (To John) Can we do a three (sixty)...(Stops to listen)

[Charlie wants John to drive in a tight circle so he can take another Rover pan.]

169:09:15 Young: How about right here?

169:09:16 Duke: Yeah. That's great. (Pause) Or 90/270; either one.

169:09:30 Young: (Starting the turn) Now.

[Jones - "90/270?"]

[Duke - "That's a aircraft term. As pilot, you're flying along
and you make a 90-degree turn and fly, and then you do a 270-degree turn, which gets you going in the opposite direction on the same track you were going out on."]

[Jones - "Ah! So you do a 90 degree turn (to the right). And
then you do a 270 (to the left)..."]

[Duke - "And the 270 brings you back going this way."]

[Jones - "So the 90 displaces you off far enough so that, when you do the 270, you're coming back along your outbound track."]

[Duke - "See, what I wanted him to do was to come this way (to the right), and then he'd start back (to the left); and, as he started back through, I'd start taking pictures."]

[Journal Contributor Frank O'Brien is a licensed pilot. "The origin of the '90/270' phrase comes from aviation instrument flight rules, specifically what is called a 'procedure turn'. Procedure turns are used as part of many instrument landing approaches. Usually, the aircraft flies over a navigation checkpoint (the initial approach fix) in a direction opposite the desired landing path. A procedure turn is made to reverse course towards the runway, and is often designed to intercept the ILS (Instrument Landing System) or localizer."]

["The purpose of having such strictly defined turns is to ensure that aircraft remain within a strictly defined airspace. For example, in an aircraft traveling north, a right 90/left 270 ensures that the aircraft will not enter airspace to the west of the original flight path. If I remember correctly, 90/270 procedure turns were used mostly by the military, and may be rarely used today. More commonly, procedure turns are 45/180/45, which is 45 degrees right turn, 180 degrees left, 45 degrees
(left again)."]

169:09:32 Duke: Make it about a 115/270. A little bit further right, John. That's good. Now you can go back (on the original track).

169:09:41 Young: Okay. Here we go. Got it?

169:09:43 Duke: I('ve) got it. Okay?

[Charlie's pictures of the "Doodlebug Hole" are
AS16-117-
18786 to
18788.]

169:09:45 Duke: Now there is a fresh crater with glass right in the bottom of that little fresh crater right back there. Meter size.

[Charlie's picture of this small, glass-bottomed crater is AS16-117-
18789.]

169:09:54 Young: And 190 at 0.7; 198 at 0.7 is the crater that Charlie's talking about.

169:10:02 England: Okay. We copy.

[With the LM at CB.1/80.6, a nav readout of 198/0.7 puts the crater near CE.4/81.7. As indicated above, the feature in pan camera frame AS16-4618 that seems to match Charlie's description, particularly with regard to it's diameter, is centered at CE.1/80.4. If John has given the nav readout as they passed east of the crater, it would seem that much of the difference between nav system locations and actual locations seen at Stations 11 and 13 has disappeared.]

169:10:12 Young: (To Houston) And that's not on the map, either. It doesn't even show up. I guess my opinion of this place is that on our traverse maps, the rimless features - the very old, subdued, rimless craters - they just don't even show up (on the photo map), and they're just not there, hardly.

169:10:34 Duke: That's right.

169:10:36 Young: I mean unless they've got a raised rim, they don't make it. They don't show up in photography, apparently.

[John is thinking that, without a rim to provide shadowing, the shallow features are not visible in the pre-mission photos used to make the map. That is certainly true of the shallowest features but, in this case, I believe the sink hole does show up, albeit indistinctly.]

169:10:44 Duke: Tony, that sink hole or whatever it was - (that is, the) subdued crater we passed back there - is really deep. I'm surprised...I really don't have a map right here with me, but it was probably 20...(re-estimating) 40 meters deep or so.

169:11:05 England: Right. We've got it on the map here.

169:11:06 Duke: We couldn't see the bottom of it.

169:11:11 Young: This is an absolutely great suspension system, Houston. You should see some of the things we've run through, and this baby just bounces right out and keeps right on going.

169:11:22 Duke: Okay. The Nav is 196 at 0.5.

[The indicated location is CD.5/81.3. They are approaching the east-west ridge north of the LM.]

[During the return traverse to the LM, John has taken photos AS16-116-
18672 to
18674.]

[Brian Lawrence notes, "I thought drinking and driving was
quite impressive, but he's taking pictures too! See the dialog at 148:24:59, where Tony says 'Let's put Bravo on John's since he doesn't shoot while he's driving'."]

[At about the present moment, Charlie takes AS16-117-
18794 which is notable because it shows a sharp turn that John made during the outbound traverse to skirt a crater. John takes a very similar photo, AS16-116-
18675.]

169:12:14 Young: Here's another real fresh one (meaning a small, fresh crater, probably with glass in the bottom).

169:12:15 England: ...an edge of the ray in the neighborhood of 50 meters north of the ALSEP area, that would be a good place to pick Station 10-Prime. (Pause) Our photo shows the edge of the ray in there.

[In the "Descartes EVA-I, III 1 of 3" map, Tony is probably referring to the boundary between the darker and lighter material that runs diagonally NE/SW and passes about 100 meters northwest of the planned landing site.]

169:12:30 Young: That would be a good place to look for it from, Charlie, right up here.

[John is thinking that, because they are above the LM and the ALSEP area, they may be able to see brightness contrast at the edge of the ray.]

169:12:34 Duke: Does he want to pick a ray?

169:12:36 Young: Pick the edge of a ray, 50 meters north of an ALSEP site...(chuckles, correcting himself) of the ALSEP site. (Pause) (Laughing) Tony, I just don't...You can't hardly tell where one...They're not as distinct...The gradational pattern is just too gradual...

169:12:57 England: Okay. ...

169:12:58 Young: ...You just can't ...

169:12:58 England: ...We sure understand. ...

169:13:00 Young: ...(lost under Tony) especially when ...(Stops to listen)

169:13:00 England: ...And just pick a site 50 meters north (of the ALSEP) and we'll call that 10-Prime.

169:13:06 Young: Okay. (Pause)

169:13:17 Duke: Tony, we must be out of (DAC) battery power because this camera - this DAC - stopped running...

[John parked on a south heading of 180. The indicated bearing to the LM is 188 but, this close to the spacecraft, the reading is meaningless. As shown in figure 6-13 in the Preliminary Science Report, John has parked about 10 meters due north of the large boulder near the ALSEP and about 70 meters WSW of the LM. The Nav system indicates that John drove a total of 11.1 km on this EVA and that he is about 0.1 km from the LM. Clearly, the Nav system has worked superbly.]